As the violence continued in Iraq yesterday, the head of the American occupation
administration admitted the US was waiting for the United Nations to find a
way out of the impasse on handing over power to Iraqis. Speaking on two American
talk shows, Paul Bremer admitted the US was now pinning its hopes on the UN,
an organisation it had written off as irrelevant at the time of the invasion
of Iraq. Rejected by the Americans and forced to flee Iraq last year after two
bombings, the UN is suddenly back in the frame in Iraq.

US hopes of getting at least partly out of the quagmire that Iraq has become
and handing power to an Iraqi interim administration by President Bush's deadline
of 30 June are looking more troubled than ever after Saturday's attack in Fallujah,
in which insurgents stormed an Iraqi police station, killing at least 21, and
an Iraqi army garrison.

The US administration is desperate to get its troops out of harm's way before
Mr Bush faces re-election in November.

American plans to hand over political power to an interim Iraqi government
also look to be in as much trouble. Mr Bremer said yesterday in interviews on
ABC's This Week and CNN's Late Editions that the US may be about to ditch its
plan to choose an interim Iraqi government with regional caucuses. Diplomats
have already said the plan is dead in the water after it was rejected by the
spiritual leader of Iraq's Shia majority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Ayatollah
Sistani is demanding direct elections, which the US claims there is not time
to organise by June.

Mr Bremer insisted that Mr Bush's deadline to hand over power still stood,
though he could not say how an interim government would be chosen. He said the
Americans were waiting for the recommendations of an UN mission recently sent
to find a way out of the impasse, under Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran Algerian
diplomat. Mr Bremer said: "We're waiting to see what he [Mr Brahimi] says
when he issues his report, hopefully in the next week or 10 days." He said
the eventual solution "may be different from the caucus plan".

Mr Brahimi said, after meeting Ayatollah Sistani, that he backed his demands
for direct elections in principle, but his spokesman has said the UN mission
accepts that direct elections are not possible before 30 June. Mr Bremer said
yesterday that the US would accept bringing elections forward to the end of
this year or January 2005 but there would be some form of handover by June.

The attack in Fallujah has underlined how difficult it will be for the US to
disengage from Iraq. The moment American troops are pulled back, as they were
in Fallujah, the new Iraqi authorities set up by the US are likely to come under
attack from insurgents - attacks they seem ill-equipped to withstand. It seems
unlikely an Iraqi government that was not directly elected could survive long
without US military protection.

American uncertainty over who is behind the attacks surfaced yesterday when
Mr Bremer said foreign militants were involved, as Iraqi police claimed. But
American officials in Baghdad claimed foreign involvement was unlikely, and
that the attacks looked more like the work of former members of Saddam Hussein's
army.

*Iraqi police have captured Muhammad Zimam Abd al-Razzaq al-Sadun, a senior
member of Saddam's toppled Baath Party and number 41 on Washington's "most
wanted" list. Iraq's Deputy Interior Minister, Ahmed Kadhim, said: "What
is special about this operation is that the Iraqi police alone conducted it.
It ... should be a source of joy for Iraqis because they now have police they
can depend on."
16 February 2004 10:26